Evolution and original sin

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Read this in another thread:
Sin resides also in the body, at least as to its effects: disease and death/decay, which were not a part of our original nature.
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Question: How does this square with the theory of evolution, which requires that humanity shares a common ancestry with all living creatures, and that death has been part of the development of humanity from single-celled organisms all the way up through the parents of Adam (and Eve, if Eve, too, had parents and wasn’t actually derived from Adam’s rib)?

I’ve heard it postulated, for example, that God took an adult humanoid (i.e., having a animal body – of human form, though – and an animal soul) from the population of evolved humanoids on Earth and breathed a human spirit or soul into it, and that was Adam. And then either God made Eve out of Adam’s rib like Genesis 2 says, or else that was metaphor and God just took a female humanoid and did the same thing with her to make her Eve. And then He overlayed “original justice and holiness” upon them so that they were immortal and free from sin, and that’s how we got the Adam and Eve of the Bible, and everything went downhill from there because Adam and Eve sinned and lost that “original justice and holiness” that had been overlayed on top of their human natures, thus returning them to the state of decay and eventual death from which they’d been taken.

Would a scenario like this, or something like it, square with Church teaching?

–Mike
 
I think you hit the nail on the head when you said the “theory” of evolution. There is much evidence for micro-evolution, which posits the change over time of a species into different types (Darwin’s finches and the like) but there is little to no evidence to directly support macro-evolution, the theory that all creatures, including humans, share a common ancestry. Similarly, there is no convincing theory for the creation of the universe except for the Big Bang (the singularity), which in itself points to a Creator for in our experience, everything cannot come from nothing without a Cause (the so-called string theories are also lacking any discernible evidence).

As for direct Catholic church teaching,
"Concerning biological evolution, the Church does not have an official position on whether various life forms developed over the course of time. However, it says that, if they did develop, then they did so under the impetus and guidance of God, and their ultimate creation must be ascribed to him.

"Concerning human evolution, the Church has a more definite teaching. It allows for the possibility that man’s body developed from previous biological forms, under God’s guidance, but it insists on the special creation of his soul. Pope Pius XII declared that “the teaching authority of the Church does not forbid that, in conformity with the present state of human sciences and sacred theology, research and discussions . . . take place with regard to the doctrine of evolution, in as far as it inquires into the origin of the human body as coming from pre-existent and living matter—[but] the Catholic faith obliges us to hold that souls are immediately created by God” (Pius XII, Humani Generis 36). So whether the human body was specially created or developed, we are required to hold as a matter of Catholic faith that the human soul is specially created; it did not evolve, and it is not inherited from our parents, as our bodies are.

While the Church permits belief in either special creation or developmental creation on certain questions, it in no circumstances permits belief in atheistic evolution. " (from this site)

The ability to pursue the truths of science is a grace from above in itself, and the Catholic need never fear what science may reveal. What Catholics (and all those of good conscience) should fear, and speak out against, instead is when science tries to convince the world that it holds answers in areas in which it has no authority.
 
Bookcat said:
Hey guys… EVOLUTION is a banned topic…see moderators ban
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In respect of the ban, here is the Catholic teaching.

Divine Revelation Trumps!

Basic Catholic teaching **regarding Adam and Original Sin **is found in the
Catechism of the Catholic Church, Second Edition, ISBN: 1-57455-109-4
Paragraphs 355-421.

The good news of Jesus Christ follows in Paragraph 422, etc.

One can put the word paragraph and its number in the Catechism’s search bar in link www.scborromeo.org/ccc.htm
Entering topics, like Adam, is also very useful.

When you enter a paragraph number, like “paragraph 355”, and then click on the opening line, CCC Search Result - Paragraph # 355 you will see the following under the paragraph:

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mdea29 said:
I think you hit the nail on the head when you said the “theory” of evolution.
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In science “Theory” is a good as it gets. Gravity is a theory as well. Do you doubt gravity?
There is much evidence for micro-evolution, which posits the change over time of a species into different types (Darwin’s finches and the like) but there is little to no evidence to directly support macro-evolution, the theory that all creatures, including humans, share a common ancestry.
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Your creationist sources are lying to you. GULO-pseudogenes, ERVs, the Chromosome 2 fusion and other evidence shows that our physical bodies evolved from primate ancestors.
"Concerning human evolution, the Church has a more definite teaching. It allows for the possibility that man’s body developed from previous biological forms, under God’s guidance, but it insists on the special creation of his soul.
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Correct. So what is the problem with evolution? It describes how man’s body evolved from earlier species. Evolution says nothing about souls. Souls do not evolve.

rossum
 
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